"

"What's he done to you?" inquired Collaton. "He must be winning a
stand-in with your girl."

"My private affairs are none of your concern!" Gresham indignantly
flared.

"All right, governor," assented Collaton a trifle sullenly. "I'll fake
that note for you to-night; and--"

"I told you I would not have anything to do with any crooked work,"
Gresham sharply reprimanded him.

"Oh, shut up!" growled Collaton. "You give me the cramps. You're a
worse crook than I am!"

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH CONSTANCE SHOWS FURTHER INTEREST IN JOHNNY'S AFFAIRS

On Wednesday morning Mr. Courtney, sitting as rigidly at his desk as if
he were in church, was handed the card of Morton Washer. He laid the
card face down and placed a paper-weight on it, as if he feared it
might get away. He turned a callous eye on his secretary and, in his
driest and most husky tones, directed: "Tell Mr. Washer I will see him
in five minutes."

During that five minutes Mr. Courtney signed letters as solemnly as a
judge pronouncing a death sentence. At last he paused and looked at
himself for a solid half-minute in the bookcase mirror across from his
desk. Apparently he was as mournful as an undertaker, but at the end of
the inspection his mouth suddenly stretched in a wide grin, which
bristled the silver-white beard upon his cheeks; his eyes screwed
themselves up into knots of jovial wrinkles and he winked--actually
winked--at his reflection in the glass! Thereupon he straightened his
face and sent for Morton Washer.

Mr. Washer, proprietor of two of the largest hotels in New York, and
half a dozen enormous winter and summer places, looked no more like a
boniface than he did like a little girl on communion Sunday. He was a
small, wispy, waspish fellow with a violently upright, raging
pompadour, a mustache which, in spite of careful attempts at waxing,
persisted in sticking straight forward, and a sharp hard nose which had
apparently been tempered to a delicate purple.

"Hear you've revived your hotel project," he said to Mr. Courtney.

"No," denied Courtney. "Sold the property."

"I know," agreed Mr. Washer with absolute disbelief. "What'll you take
for it?"

"I told you it was sold. Here's the contract." And, with great
satisfaction, Courtney passed over the document.

"Two million six hundred and fifty!" snorted Washer. "That's half a
million more than it's worth."

"You told my friends you intended to buy the railroad plot at th